Mahmoud Taleghani

Mahmoud Taleghani (5 March 1911-9 September 1979) was a senior Shia cleric in Iran and one of the members of the Council of the Islamic Revolution.

Biography
Mahmoud Taleghani was born in Galird, Iran on 5 March 1911, and he became a Shia imam in Tehran in 1938. Taleghani was involved with education revolutionaries from the very beginning, and he was arrested for his support of Mohammad Mosaddegh before the 1953 coup d'etat. From 1964 to 1978, he spent a decade in jail for his opposition to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, but he was released in November 1978 during the Iranian Revolution. Taleghani was known for his tolerance, working with the Kurds and other minority groups on the behalf of Ayatollah Khomeini, and he was also known to be a proponent of blending Shi'ism and Marxism into a new form of "Islamic socialism", one that could compete with other left-wing movements. Taleghani was considered to be a champion of moderation and progressive thought, and he was known to be a chain smoker. On 9 September 1979, he died under mysterious circumstances, and two of his sons claimed that he had been murdered.